A Meeting Elsewhere
by Grille
Summary: A slayer and a serial killer have a chance encounter, really what are the odds? (Very AU)
1. Chapter 1

The mist clears and it's bright again.

The sky is beautiful;

But there are girls running through bone scattered gardens crying.

The world has gone to hell.

There is nothing left to defend.

A little one, her face stretched so tight with youth that even her smiles look pinched, sprints.

Buffy runs beside her.

They find the rune traced portals Willow set for them

A place to slip through.

She looks at Emma, the little girl with brown eyes who is crying, as they stand at the edges of a bird bath and a plant pot respectively.

They have found the two doors

The rest is up to Will.

She'll send them away till the fires cool down.

Willow's disembodied voice whispers in different tongues.

Gentle flames envelope the crying child and carry her away to a new life as someone different, someone who's safe.

Buffy turns back to look at him, the man who is chasing her, and she actually smiles.

All bones and sinew covered by black leather,

It isn't god like-

-The way she holds herself-

But it's noble.

The bird bath bursts into flame and green wreathes around it.

Buffy hopes that she lands somewhere quiet.

Funny how things work out.

One breath and-

She's in a rusty car and it's speeding down an alley toward a man holding a metal pipe.

He steps aside and she sees the spikes embeded in the wall behind him

the one she's speeding towards.

Her foot hits the brake as quickly as the spikes forcibly shatter her wind shield

The fear that's supposed to snap her into a new skin, help her forget, is put on hold.

She kicks the driver door out and rolls away before the pipe is lodged down her throat.

He wants to kill her

And he is human

But there's something wrong something foreign to his eyes that isn't.

So she fights back,

jumps over the crunched car and lunges for him

If she hadn't he might have let her live

Let her be

But she still has the left over air taken by Buffy in her lungs

In her veins

And she remembers

For now she is Buffy still

And she is not afraid

Dexter is at first confused because the man who should be in the driver seat of the car is a girl

His mind races with the unpleasant new variables.

He drops the pipe.

The car halts

she tumbles out of it too small girl in a murderer's clothes

But he's thrilled when he sees the look in her eye.

She knows what he is

And she'll kill him for it.

He is almost disappointed that she won't last long

She is so small

And he's been at this far longer afterall.

The trap wasn't set for her but she moves like a person who has fought before-

No hesitation

-Killed before-

-She seems to _know_ fighting personally-

-Surviving-

-She's survived before-

But she isn't smarter than him.

He pivots out of her way when she makes to crack him in the chest with her tiny brown fist

He could grab her hair or hit the back of her neck

But decides to let her break her hand against the brick wall first

It shatters like glass-

-The brick-

-not her hand.

And suddenly she is faster.

Was she toying before?

He is curious now.

Her arms are twisted round his neck pulling him down to her level.

"Go." she breaths hot in his ear.

Her breath is sour and desperate.

Maybe she's not a killer then.

He's struck, no, not so much struck as passively curious,

by how young she is

And how strong her fingers are.

Rita asks later about the finger shaped bruises on his collar bone and neck.

He lies.


	2. Chapter 2

It isn't a nice neighborhood

Gun shots sound and people close their windows

There's a small church at the street corner

The new parishioner won't walk outside

Most of his faith rests in bullet proof glass

Buffy roams

She isn't afraid

The air is too hot for sleep

And she hasn't the money for a bed anyways

Besides she refuses to sleep in that killer's

She is not like him

Her eyes have changed

Something sets in them rotten and greened

Buffy has his eyes and a wisp of his memory

It claws at her as she wanders

Waiting to be in the wrong place at the wrong time

Itching for a fight that never comes

Because people recognize that look

They know to stay away from it

After a few hours Buffy gives in

She sees a boy shot while walking home

He was looking at her

Body first

Then he sees her eyes

And the mean set of her mouth

He looks away

And fiddles with the string on his hoodie

Then they both here the screech of wheels he starts to run

He is gone

She looks around but no one is calling 911

His blood is splattered on her shirt

Buffy is tired

For awhile she just stands there muggy air crunching her hair and a street lamp casting weird highlights on the dead boy

But finally she calls

"There's a kid that's dead."

Then dumps her disposable phone still on and keeps walking

* * *

Dexter reads the blood

They need to find the shooter

It's not the blood that is there but the blood that isn't which clues him in

'Someone was standing right here when the kid was shot.'

'think they were close enough to be able to id the killer?'

'yah.'

'Think it was whoever owns this?'

Deb holds up a disposable cell

They'll run the prints in case

But there isn't a match

Buffy's print aren't in the system

Meanwhile Buffy skulks into her apartment

And curls up on the floor

She dreams about a world burning

It was her home once too

The survivors rechristen it hell

She sees the man who has taken her place there among them

He should be wearing her skin and catatonic like the others that Willow switched

He isn't

Catatonic

But he is wearing her face

The fire light catches her/his eyes and ignites the black of her/his pupils eating at the iris

Dark and awful

But there's use for him there

'His name is Dan.' Willow tells her

-Sometimes it's like Will can see Buffy watching and she'll tell her things-

Like how Dan isn't afraid, can't be afraid

He's got an itch in his brain were his heart should be

And adrenaline and death feel like salve to him

Willow won't let him die

Buffy hopes he does sometimes

If Dan dies Buffy will come back

She'll bring the slayer essence with her

And Willow's magic will lose some of it's power

Buffy doesn't like dreaming

Especially about Dan

He never brushes her hair

And the shoes he wears

she can't be sure if it's the gore that makes her nauseous on waking or Dan's fashion sense

But she's awake with Dan's wallet the next morning and the fading echo of his memory

Dan lives in the outskirts of Miami

He rents an apartment over a diner

Buffy doesn't quite look like Dan

Luckily the land lord doesn't care as long as she pays him rent

So Buffy lives in the cracked room

The paint peeled walls

Floors coated in dust

Dan's few things scattered on the floor to welcome her

There is one window with a view of an alley

It's a good bird's view she knows why Dan chose it.

The window pane has fresh blue paint and no dust or dead flies

The only place Dan cared for

Buffy can see people from that window

But it's hidden in the grayed brick

People don't see her

That suits her just fine


End file.
